


Always

by kaykay8776



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Breakdown, Mentioned Ellen MacGyver, Mentioned James MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Platonic Bedsharing, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Post-Episode: s04e08 Father + Son + Father + Matriarch, forehead kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29627460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaykay8776/pseuds/kaykay8776
Summary: He tried to push her away. But she pushed back and he didn't know what to do.
Relationships: Riley Davis & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 62





	Always

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. I'm new here and have absolutely no idea what the eff I'm doing, so please bear with me if I tagged or formatted this weird. This is my first fic I'm ever posting publicly. I'm scared but excited! Comments would be appreciated! Let me know how I did! Any mistakes are my own.
> 
> My tumblr is @macgyver2224 if y'all want to check that out too. Thanks!

To say Angus MacGyver had a bad day would be the understatement of the century.

They’d found his nemesis, who had been completely off the grid since killing Charlie, and Mac had been forced to let him go.

He learned that his mother—who he’d spent his entire life thinking was a sweet, loving woman who had absolutely nothing to do with the intelligence community—worked for DXS. Who, during her time there, came up with an insane, astonishing plan to kill off a whole quarter of the world’s population in order to avoid the planet’s inevitable death. And now, her sister, who Mac hadn’t even known existed, was head of an extremist organization trying to carry out Ellen’s plan and make it a reality.

Mac barely even knew her to begin with. Ellen MacGyver was gone too soon, leaving too little of herself behind for her son to remember. Dad was too busy grieving to realize that Mac was too; that Mac _missed_ her. Although he had more impressions of his mom than actual memories, he felt like he’d had an idea of who she was. He thought she was an innocent woman who loved her family and was taken because of factors outside of her control.

Instead, Ellen MacGyver was trying to end the world.

As if all of that wasn’t enough, his father had taken a bullet that had damaged the ignition fob for the explosives, forcing him to stay behind and detonate them manually.

Unfortunately, being an elite operative in a top secret government organization meant that Mac’s personal address was technically classified information. That meant the cab he had drive him home—his truck was currently out of commission and he was just too tired to fix it tonight—was only allowed to drop him off at the end of his street. Mac thought about just having him drive to his house anyway, because he was seriously not in the mood to walk home, but he knew that even despite everything that happened today Russ and Matty would not be impressed. Not having the patience to deal with them, Mac just wordlessly paid the cabbie and started his trek up the hill.

It was a weird feeling. Mac didn’t remember the last time he felt this....numb. When he got to his front door, he didn’t have any memory of his walk.

He moved on autopilot as he unlocked his door and headed inside, closing his door as he deposited his bag on the floor. He leaned against the door and released a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

His phone buzzed with a text. It was from Desi.

_Are you sure you’ll be okay by yourself?_

He unlocked his phone and went into his messages to reply, to tell her he just needed some space for tonight, but as he opened his messages, his eyes drifted to something: the last text he sent to his dad, from a couple weeks ago.

_Happy birthday dad. Maybe give me a call when you get the chance?_

Mac’s eyes froze on the message against his own will. He’d been so stupid. One measly text message? He should’ve called him again, been more persistent in his messages that he did want to talk. He should’ve tried harder. Then maybe they could’ve started over, could’ve been good again, maybe Mac could have found his dad a good treatment plan, maybe—

Something snapped. The weight of everything that went down today hit him in the face all at once; his dad was dead, his aunt was trying to kill billions of people, and he didn’t know who his mom was.

He hurled his phone across the house into the kitchen—he heard it shatter somewhere, probably in the sink—and sunk down to the floor, his legs feeling like jelly, curling in on himself. Mac couldn’t breathe; the violent sobs and cries tearing themselves from his chest didn’t allow it.

He tried to fight it, God, he _fought_ , but he lost miserably. He didn’t have time for this; Gwen was still out there, trying to carry out a plan to essentially reset the world and society as they knew it. But his pain sunk its razor sharp talons into him and wouldn’t let go. He felt like some teenager unable to control his emotions.

He soon gave up the one-sided fight. He decided, screw it. No one else was here. He could get this crap out of his system and be back to work by tomorrow morning. He was home alone, no one had to know that he, a twenty-eight-year-old, grown-ass man, was sitting here bawling like a three-year-old. Right?

Wrong. Because suddenly, he wasn’t alone anymore. Someone was unlocking the door behind him. He froze, immediately realizing who it was.

Dammit, Riley.

Mac barely got himself standing and his tears smeared away before she entered.

“Mac, hey—” She looked worried, and sort of frantic, like she’d been in a real hurry to get herself here. She absentmindedly shut the door behind her.

“What are you doing here?” His voice sounded terrible. Strained and raspy. The look on Riley’s face said it all; she already knew. She must've heard him. Mac didn’t care. He wouldn’t show it. He couldn’t.

“I live here, remember?”

“I told you guys I needed space.” He’d hoped that she would go and stay at Desi’s place or something. As much as he loved Riley, he needed to be alone.

Riley gave him that look. She knew exactly what he was doing. Pushing her away because he didn’t want to let her in.

“You keep telling yourself that, Mac, but I know you better than that.” Riley said. Mac scoffed, the sound bitter on his tongue as he turned away.

“You’re telling me you know what I need better than I do?” Mac spat. “You don’t know a damn thing about me, Riley. Go away.” It hurt to say the words, and he didn’t mean them, only saying them because he was upset and couldn’t do this right now.

“Yes, I do.” Unsurprisingly, she refused to back off; something he wasn’t used to dealing with anymore since a certain Karaoke-loving Texan left him. She grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him back around to face her—by now they’d gotten to the kitchen—and placed both her hands firmly on his shoulders. He pulled away and stalked towards the living room, hands tugging painfully at his hair in an effort to distract himself from the angry tornado that was his mind.

“You’re not invincible, Angus.”

The use of his first name made him stop. He looked at her, frowning.

“What?”

“You think you can just pretend something doesn’t hurt and it’ll magically stop hurting,” Riley continued. She took a step back towards him, and he didn’t try to run again. “You think if you just shove it hard enough, it’ll all disappear. But it doesn’t work that way, Mac. Nothing does. You can’t just get rid of that hurt.”

He understood what she was saying. He’d heard it from every shrink he’d ever had the displeasure of seeing. _You compartmentalize too much. Try this healthier coping mechanism._ None of which worked. He knew exactly what Riley was about to say: _you can’t just get rid of that hurt, Mac. You have to take it out of the box and feel it so you can heal._

“I don’t have time to hurt, Riley,” His voice cracked. He sniffed wetly. “You said it yourself. Gwen’s still out there. She’s trying to friggin’ kill _billions_ of people and thinks she’s saving the world by doing it! We don’t have a clue where they are, what they’re planning, or when they plan to do it!”

Although they were still a distance apart, so he wasn’t in her face, he was still yelling. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, releasing it through his mouth.

“I can’t just sit here and...and _cry,_ Riley. Codex is a _real_ problem. I need to stay focused and stop them before it’s too late.”

“And we will,” Riley said firmly, emphasizing the _we_. “I promise you, Mac, we will stop them. But we’re a team, and we all need you to be on your game when we do.”

She went to say more, but Mac cut her off. “On my game? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Riley took a breath. She tried a different tactic. “Mac, do you remember when Murdoc’s goons infiltrated the Phoenix a few years ago? And I had to kill that guy in the server room?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“And then a little while later, on that airplane with the handheld EMP? I froze up because I couldn’t bring myself to pull that trigger again. I almost got all of us killed, Mac. If anyone had gotten seriously hurt or killed in that crash, it would’ve been on me. _I_ wasn’t on _my_ game that day. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

Mac stayed quiet, looking away, but Riley elaborated anyway. She angled herself to look Mac in the eyes.

“Mac, I know I sound like a shrink right now, but I need you to listen to me. If you don’t open the box and let some of those feelings out now, while you’re safe, they will rear their ugly heads and come out when it’s least convenient. It might just get you killed. Or me, or Desi, or Bozer.”

Mac hated to admit it, even to himself, but she was right. He was putting the whole team at risk by doing this. It happened to Riley, it could happen to him. Even he wasn’t immune to basic human psychology.

Slowly, Riley approached him again. This time, he didn’t try to push her away, because he realized he didn’t want to. She took his hand in both of her own, threading their fingers together. Mac didn’t move.

“Baby, I’m right here.” Riley whispered. A fat tear rolled down Mac’s cheek and splattered on the floor. “You’re safe with me. I promise. I won’t leave you.”

And Mac realized with a start that he genuinely believed her, because that was exactly what she did. He told her point blank that he wanted her to leave him alone, and she didn’t because she knew it wasn’t what he really needed. He pushed everyone away and Riley was the only one who pushed back. Although, she didn’t exactly push back. She convinced Mac it was safe to stop pushing.

He inhaled a wobbly gasp. “He wasn’t….he wasn’t supposed to die.”

Riley gave his hand a squeeze, assuring him that she was there, and she was listening.

“We were supposed to start over….but I just left him there to die, Riley. I-I just left him _alone_ —”

Riley wrapped her arms around him and Mac melted into it. Suddenly it was like he was in the entryway all over again. His defenses toppled over like a Jenga tower. Sobs made their way out of him with the force of a wrecking ball.

Only, he wasn’t alone. He didn’t feel alone.

He supposed it was the ugly cry he needed, to get this stuff out of his system now, so it wouldn’t come out later when it wasn’t allowed to.

His legs gave out and he dragged Riley with him, because once he was in her arms the thought of leaving was unbearable. Here, with Riley holding him and soaking up his tears without blinking an eye, Mac felt safer than he ever had. No one could get to him. No one else could hurt him, because he knew Riley wouldn’t let them.

For the first time in what felt like forever, Mac allowed himself release. He’d never see his dad again. He’d never get to have that chance to make it better. His mom was a liar. He had absolutely no idea who his mother really was, and he’d never have the chance to find that out either.

He laid there sobbing into Riley’s chest for what felt like hours and she just sat there and let him. She stroked his hair and whispered quiet comforts to him, but otherwise didn’t intervene. She just allowed him to let go. Even after his cries stopped and his tears became silent, Mac stayed with her. Riley had to be uncomfortable, with the weird position they were sitting in, but he still couldn’t muster up the courage to leave her. He would be alone again, and right now, in this moment, Mac couldn’t have that. In a few hours, he would have to. He was okay with that. But right now, the thought of being alone made him feel sick. He needed her.

“We should get you to bed, honey. It’s late.”

He looked up at her through red, swollen eyes.

“Can you—”

“Don’t worry, I’ll stay with you.” she quickly reassured.

Mac nodded his thanks, and she helped him stand on wobbly legs, cramped from being bent on the floor for too long. Riley took his hand and guided him to his room. He collapsed on the edge of his bed, feeling numb again, while Riley rifled through his drawers. He didn’t even have the mind to feel embarrassed or bashful when she accidentally opened his underwear drawer. After grabbing a set of night clothes for Mac, she came back up to him. She dropped the clothes on the bed and gave him plenty of time to protest or pull away before grabbing the hem of the shirt he was wearing.

“Arms up.”

The easiest tasks are the hardest when life has you down.

Riley helped him get dressed for bed. The oversized t-shirt and the thin, cooling sweatpants were heaven after being in his jeans and button up all day. Once he was dressed for bed, Riley put on a couple of his clothes. Mac almost protested, because her room was right down the hall, but decided he didn’t have the energy to speak. He was exhausted.

Riley left the room briefly, telling him she would be right back, and returned with a handful of crackers and a tall, full glass of water.

“Before you lay down for bed, I need you to drink all of this and eat all of these. You’ll feel a bit better.”

He took them and slowly did as told. The silence in his room was thankfully a comfortable one, while he attempted to nourish himself and Riley brushed her teeth and fixed her hair for bed. When she came back out, Mac’s glass was empty and the crackers were gone.

“Did you want any more?”

“More water would be good. Thanks, Ri.” He attempted a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Did you want to watch something for a bit?” Riley offered after bringing him more water.

Mac was already falling asleep. “No, that’s okay. I’m tired.”

Riley nodded understandingly, and turned out his bedroom light. He got bundled up in his covers, Riley climbing in behind him and doing the same. After a few moments, he rolled and faced her.

“You know, Ri...you have your own bed across the hall.”

“I meant what I said, Mac,” she replied quietly. “I’m not leaving you.”

“I’m sorry I tried to push you away.”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry I’m the only one who pushed back.”

“You weren’t. I just....pushed everyone else a lot harder than I did you.”

Riley cocked her head. “May I ask why?”

Mac shrugged. “I trust you, Riley.” He expected the words to feel foreign on his tongue, but they didn’t in the slightest. They only felt right.

“Thank you,” He whispered. Sensitive to emotions after the day he’d had, his eyes went misty again. Riley’s did too. “Thanks for everything.” _For not leaving like everyone else does. For putting me back together when I couldn’t do it myself._

She nodded and reached out, cupping the back of his head. He closed his eyes as she leaned forward and placed a delicate kiss to his forehead.

“Always.”

For the first time in months, there in Riley’s arms, Angus MacGyver slept soundly.


End file.
